EVERYBODY KNOWS

We are just drowning in this morass, born of the most radical greed and indecency, where:

… There are budget managers for political parties who make fortunes and evade to tax havens;
… Politicians charged with corruption causes in all parties (yes, some with many more than others);
… Rampant unemployment index continues to increase and has no turning point in sight;
… That Labour Act so far has only led to an increasing flow of bleeding situations;
… Much of our savings banks have been ruined by greedy incompetents in positions of Directors (from political parties, trade unions and private contexts) without even the slightest training or awareness of them managing heritage and deposits of so many good people.

… These false managers and directors who have ruined tens of thousands of families from all over Spain, but stand the withdrawal of millions of euros in their pockets, robbed the peasant, the retired, the student, the housewife, the worker, stealing under the title of “Preferred Stock” (preference to those who have the money);
… Immersed in adjustments that primarily affect teachers and staff who care for our health and are working long hours like a donk.

… Where entrepreneurs and freelancers shut down their small businesses because there is no credit or liquidity (as the banks which should lend invest in government bonds instead, which gives them more productivity with less risk, because what really counts for them is to win -only).

… Where plans for getting rid of workers (EREs) also grow steadily (these plans are a euphemism and mean mass layoffs and so should be called) every day, those are causing distress, anxiety, insomnia and despair. (There are other EREs, false ones, that allowed several criminals heads of a political office stealing public funds with no worries);
… In a country where the right wing and left wing, nationalists or not, all they have bad apples in the basket, more than one, and more than two, and some do not even know how many.
… With daily evictions that are violations of human dignity, procured under an immoral law, I insist, a law that is deeply unethical and unrespectful for human dignity (yes, laws may be immoral, just see laws enacted by dictators, for example) that favors the billionaire banker protected by the system, while ruins who wanted to rent the apartment and got it as it would be theirs for life and for a very low price.
… Evictions  involving a debt load to thirty years or more for he who signed, for an asset that was not worth as it really cost much less and it is not supported in payment for the debt.

And much more… infamy.

Fraud, avarice, usury, meanness, misery, poverty, impunity, plunder, despotism, oligarchy, excess, unconsciousness, indifference, shame, laziness, shamelessness, impudence, cynicism, contempt, abuse, mockery, theft, obscenity, assault, robbery, stagnation, inertia, nausea, anxiety, dizziness, injustice, absurdity, indecency, despair… ENOUGH ALREADY!

As we all know what we have is not a crisis. It is the list of all of the above concepts.

Where is justice? Is it in Garzón, the only person convicted for the Gürtelgate, wanting to know more? A convicted judge (!), as the first seam that will burst and show that the vast majority of the political elite of this country, the wing and origin they may be, handled global and local corruption at ease extracting resources from taxpayers who are becoming more drained off every day.

Yes, we all know. And all of us, or many, increasingly, also wonder.

Where is the sense? If there are adjustments, tell me why. Tell me, you who govern, that my effort is worth today so that my children will have the health system they deserve and that my parents conquered after years and years of working hard.

Tell me, you who govern or aspire to do so, the teacher (Magister, which deals with the biggest, our children, our future) will be recognized and rewarded in the future even more than the Minister (Minister, which deals with the small, the management of the material).

Tell me, you who govern or aspire to do so (hopefully with true dedication to service), that the souls of our children and culture we know to impart them is a future of hope, and you will do everything to ensure this, because there is enough for everyone if divided up and managed well. But not enough, if so many thiefs covered in the perversions of a system that promotes fortune born of lies and manipulation from the “powerful” -that evades millions to tax havens, euros remaining sterile in accounting entries, which are used to purchase most obscene whim, banality not worth the money, the smiling mask obscenely expensive that hides an incolmable emptiness. They are the hallmark of corruption and moral misery of a minority who self-protects and covers members who hide each other’s shame, or make them noticed to avoid theirs be looked more closely.

Tell me, you who govern or aspire to do so if, again, we will continue to live with laws that are deeply immoral, which the judges themselves who are good people feel sadness, helplessness and frustration about. Tell me you will not conceal your fellow soldiers if you know they are indecent, that transparency is prior over the concealment of evil.

Tell me, you who govern, that those who care for our health will have the means to heal those who can not by his age, or his lack of work or because they came from afar and has nothing but the clothes he wears.

Tell me, you who govern or aspire to do so that the rich and their children will develop an awareness of solidarity through education and culture in the media andat school. And that you will teach children to make a difference between value and price, desire and need. Tell me you will really teach them values to live by: courage, responsibility, purpose, humility, simplicity, consistency, and many others.

And that you will listen to the voice of the people, really. Carefully you will hear what they ask and tell. That you will get off your official car that takes you from red carpet to red carpet and from office to office, isolated from the world, and you will see what happens in the home of the elderly woman who lives alone and by a miserable pension, that you may want to see the town almost deserted and ruined, you will move through the streets of the neediest neighbourhoods, you will learn from those who can cooperate and pull forward because they know me means us.

Tell me you will be transparent. For more than fair (seeing how justice and the laws promulgated by men are), I prefer you to be transparent as you are an official server or a bureaucrat of what belongs to everyone. Because if you’re not, you become dysfunctional, and we pay all your dysfunctions, with interests that are ruining our present and future. Tell me if you are not sure, you will not present yourself for election.

And the more I wanted to say and so many things that I haven’t.

This is not working. IT DOES NOT WORK. It won’t unless there is a total regeneration: crisis, chrysalis, criticism, judgment, sieve. That is the real purpose of a crisis, a total rebirth.

Let’s change causes. From complainig.

We deserve another life.

What can we do? Set ourselves what we don’t agree with. Convene for the best of us at every moment. Report infamy. Show it on the Social Media when necessary. Adhere to popular initiatives which may result from the creation of truly fair and ethical laws. Do not hide or make us accomplices of the executioner, executioners of our society. Act with one voice that nurtures from the words of those who no longer want to give even a crumb of bread to the chorizo (the evader).

Hugs to the good people.

Álex Rovira

P.S. I received this text and video the last weekend. Moving.

MAGIC MOMENT AT THE ROME OPERA

On March 12th, Silvio Berlusconi was forced to face reality. Italy celebrated the 150th anniversary of its establishment as a country and in Rome was represented the opera “Nabucco” by Giuseppe Verdi, conducted by Maestro Riccardo Muti.

“Nabucco” episode evokes the slavery of the Jews in Babylon, and the famous song “Va pensiero” chorus is the song of the oppressed slaves. In Italy, this song is a symbol of the quest for freedom (in the years of writing the opera, Italy was under the Habsburg Empire).

Before the performance, Gianni Alemanno, Mayor of Rome, took the stage to deliver a speech in which he denounced the culture budget cuts that the government was doing, even though Alemanno is a member of the ruling party and had been a minister of Berlusconi.

This intervention of the mayor, in the presence of Berlusconi attending the performance, produced an unexpected effect. Riccardo Muti, the orchestra director, told the Times: “The opera went smoothly until we got to the famous song ‘Va pensiero’. Immediately, I felt that the audience stiffened. Some things can not be described, but one feels them”.

It was a public silence which was felt before, but when “Va Pensiero” started, the silence was filled with real fervor. You could feel the audience’s reaction to the lament of the slaves who sing: “Oh my country, so beautiful and so lost.”

When the chorus came to an end, the public began to ask for an encore, while shouting “Viva Italia” and “Viva Verdi”. Muti does not usually like to do an encore in the middle of a performance. Only once, at La Scala in Milan, in 1986, had accepted an encore of “Va pensiero”.

“I did not want to just do an encore, there had to be a special intention to do so”, Muti said.

In a theatrical gesture, Muti turned around, looked at the audience and Berlusconi at a time, and there was someone in the audience who shouted: “Long live Italy!”.

Muti said then: “Yes, I agree: Long live Italy, but I am not 30 years-old now, I lived my life as an Italian and I have traveled the world. Today I am ashamed of what is happening in my country. I agree, then, at your request for an encore of “Va pensiero”. Not just for the joy of you feeling patriotic, but because tonight, when I led the choir that sang “Alas my country, beautiful and lost!” I thought that if we continue like this we will kill the culture which is built on the history of Italy. In this case, our country would be truly “beautiful and lost.”

Clapping, including the artists on stage. Muti said: “I kept silent for many years. Now I should give meaning to this song. I propose to join the choir and sing ‘Va pensiero'”.

All rose at the Rome Opera. And the chorus too. It was a magical moment. That night was not only a representation of “Nabucco”, but it was also a statement of the theater of the capital to call attention to politicians.

In the video you can live that magic moment, full of emotion.

Alex Rovira